The bulk handling of snack foods in health and grocery stores is normally accomplished by the use of open top containers and scoops. In particular, a customer will normally scoop out the desired quantity of a snack food from a container and deposit it into a plastic or paper bag for weighing and price determination purposes. Snack foods of this type may include raisins, other types of dried fruit, malt balls, cookies, mixed nuts, various candies and the like.
Conventional containers of this type are unsanitary since the snack food is exposed to ambient dirt, dust and vermin, and potential customer contamination. Various dispensing apparatus have been proposed to alleviate the problem of sanitation. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,920,796 and 4,511,067 each disclose a dispenser that utilizes a paddle-wheel type of conveying member for dispensing measured quantities of foodstuffs. U.S. Pat. No. 2,550,248 discloses a dispenser that includes a reciprocal tray for effecting the dispensing function. U.S. Pat. No. 2,593,803 discloses another type of dispenser wherein a screw conveyor shaft is utilized to dispense finely divided products, such as sugar or salt, into a receptacle that is emptied by tipping the dispenser.
Dispensing apparatus of the above type are relatively complex in construction and operation and may give rise to clogging and related problems. Each dispenser is normally constructed to dispense a single type of foodstuff product and is not particularly adapted for dispensing various types of products having particle sizes ranging from sugar to large pieces of dired fruit. Further, many such dispensers fail to provide the customer with continuous visual inspection of the dispensed product and accurate measurement of the quantity of product being dispensed.